Angry memories and thoughts of revenge: The relationship between forgiveness and anger rumination (original) (raw)
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Why Do People With Self-Control Forgive Others Easily? The Role of Rumination and Anger
Frontiers in Psychology, 2020
Previous research shows that self-control predicts forgiveness, but few studies have investigated the internal mechanism of this link. The current study explored the effects of rumination and anger on the relationship between self-control and forgiveness. A total of 580 college students recruited from three universities in Wuhan completed the self-control, rumination, anger, and trait forgiveness scales. Results showed that self-control was positively correlated with forgiveness (r = 0.34, p < 0.001). Rumination (β = 0.08, p < 0.05) and anger (β = 0.13, p < 0.05) mediate the relationship between self-control and forgiveness. Moreover, a serial mediation effect of rumination and anger was observed between self-control and trait forgiveness (β = 0.02, p < 0.05). These findings suggest that self-control may impair individuals' rumination. Moreover, less rumination may restrain anger and consequently increase forgiveness.
Differentiating Anger and Resentment: Implications for Forgiveness and Psychological Distress
2018
In recent years, forgiveness interventions have been widely and effectively used to help people exposed to a diverse array of unpleasant, traumatic experiences. Theoretical underpinnings of these interventions emphasise the distinction between anger and resentment and a primary goal of treatment is the relinquishing of long-lasting, lingering feelings of resentment. Empirical evidence of distinctions between anger and resentment is sparse, however. The present research was designed to redress this situation by exploring the phenomenological characteristics of anger and resentment. Across a series of three studies, participants recalled autobiographical memories of personal, real-life anger and resentment experiences and the two emotions were compared on several emotion components; namely, eliciting situations, subjective feelings, emotivational goals, action tendencies or urges, sensations, cognitions, and behaviours.
Rumination, Emotion, and Forgiveness: Three Longitudinal Studies
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2007
In 3 studies, the authors investigated whether within-persons increases in rumination about an interpersonal transgression were associated with within-persons reductions in forgiveness. Results supported this hypothesis. The association of transient increases in rumination with transient reductions in forgiveness appeared to be mediated by anger, but not fear, toward the transgressor. The association of rumination and forgiveness was not confounded by daily fluctuations in positive affect and negative affect, and it was not moderated by trait levels of positive affectivity, negative affectivity, or perceived hurtfulness of the transgression. Cross-lagged associations of rumination and forgiveness in Study 3 more consistently supported the proposition that increased rumination precedes reductions in forgiveness than the proposition that increased forgiveness precedes reductions in rumination.
The Cognitive and Emotive Uses of Forgiveness
This article presents the cognitive and emotive uses of forgiveness as a psychotherapeutic technique which enables patients to release anger without inflicting harm on others. The benefits, process, and preventive uses of forgiveness in psychotherapy as well as obstacles encountered to relinquishing anger are discussed.
It would give us some comfort if we could only forget a past that we cannot change. If we could only choose to forger the cruelest moments, we could, as time goes on, free our selves from their pain. But the wrong sticks like a nettle in our memory. The only way to remove the nettle is with a surgical procedure called forgiveness.
Forgivingness, Vengeful Rumination, and Affective Traits
Journal of Personality, 2005
Trait forgivingness is the disposition to forgive interpersonal transgressions over time and across situations. We define forgiveness as the replacement of negative unforgiving emotions with positive, other-oriented emotions. Rumination has been suggested as a mediator between forgivingness and emotional outcomes; however, we suggest that different content of rumination leads to different outcomes after transgressions. In four studies of 179, 233, 80, and 66 undergraduate students, trait forgivingness was negatively correlated with trait anger, hostility, neuroticism, fear, and vengeful rumination and was positively correlated
Forgiveness and the Multiple Functions of Anger
Journal of Philosophy of Emotion, 2020
This paper defends an account of forgiveness that is sensitive to recent work on anger. Like others, we claim anger involves an appraisal, namely that someone has done something wrong. But, we add, anger has two further functions. First, anger communicates to the wrongdoer that her act has been appraised as wrong and demands she feel guilty. This function enables us to explain why apologies make it reasonable to forgo anger and forgive. Second, anger sanctions the wrongdoer for what she has done. This function allows us to explore the moral status of forgiveness, including why forgiveness is typically elective.
Hate, Revenge and Forgiveness: A Healthy, Ego-Strengthening Alternative to the Experience of Offense
Forgiveness is a choice, a process and an internal response that involves release of negative affect including anger which, when chronic, can develop into hatred. It is not forgetting or condoning, and it does not necessarily lead to reconciliation though that is potentiated. The process of forgiveness includes 1) re-constructuring cognitions about the offender and self and 2) reimaging the offender and re-experiencing self and violator. This object transformation results in ego development since objects and object constellations are the building blocks of ego identity . The ego is empowered to more effectively deal with conflict and associated negative affect due to abatement of anger and decreased internal arousal. This increases the ego's ability for effective communication and conflict resolution.
Forgiveness and its determinants depending on the interpersonal context of hurt
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2013
Children and adolescents encounter different hurtful experiences in school settings. How these events are processed (e.g., whether they think that the transgressor was hostile) is likely to depend on the relationship with the transgressor. In this study, we examined how adolescents (58 girls and 35 boys, mean age = 14.03years, SD = 0.60) dealt with the hurt caused by someone they liked or disliked. Our findings show that the hurt caused by a disliked transgressor is likely to lead to more negative cognitive (e.g., hostile attributions), affective (e.g., feelings of anger), and motivational (e.g., avoidance/revenge) outcomes than the hurt caused by a liked peer. In addition, we found that associations between cognitive processes and avoidance/revenge were mediated by feelings of anger, but only when the transgression occurred in the context of disliking. These results highlight the importance of studying how adolescents process hurtful experiences in different relational contexts.